How to Love Where You Are and Eat Where the Locals Eat!!: Mimi's Cafe and Desert Botanical Garden

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Mimi's Cafe and Desert Botanical Garden

In case you have not noticed food is a very important part of a full-timers life, or at least these full-timers, and those that know us from before we were full-timers know that it was important then too. We try to work eating out around our errands and our sightseeing. The first question may be where are we going but the first or second question is always where are we going to eat as we sometimes plan our outings around where we want to eat.

We planned our eating out at Mimi's Cafe this time because of a coupon for free muffins with a breakfast entree. Mimi's has one of the best e-Clubs that you will find. We are always getting 'buy 1 breakfast get 1 free' coupons or '$5 off of a $15 check' or 'free muffins with a breakfast entree' coupons. We eat at Mimi's because the food is great, the pumpkin pancakes are terrific, three or four varieties of Eggs Benedict all of which are good, omelets and breakfast sandwiches are also good. With some meals you get a muffin and the carrot nut raisin is our favorite. All meals come with juice which is a nice touch.

After Mimi's we headed to the Desert Botanical Garden, a 145 acre site that provides education, research, exhibition and conservation of desert plants of the world with emphasis on the southwestern United States bringing to life the many wonders of the desert. We visited about 20 years ago and were amazed at how much more had been added. There is an additional 65 acres under cultivation and new exhibits planned so like the desert the Desert Botanical Garden is always growing albeit slowly. We really liked that a lot of the plants were labeled and we were amazed about how many agave varieties there are. This is a highly enjoyable, informative site that should be on everybody's list that visits this area.